The Canadian government has sent an emergency management expert to the Republic of the Congo to help the World Health Organization battle the worsening Ebola outbreak in nearby Democratic Republic of Congo.

The outbreak is now the second largest in history after the West Africa Ebola one that killed 11,000 people between 2014 and 2016 and put the world on edge. So far, 385 people have died in DRC and the outbreak, amid ongoing conflict and contentious elections, continues to grow.

The Public Health Agency of Canada is “closely monitoring the situation,” said spokeswoman Anna Maddison.

Although there are new tools to fight Ebola since the 2014 crisis — notably the Canadian-developed experimental vaccine — the backdrop of political instability and violence in DRC is making it difficult to contain the outbreak. It is also causing growing alarm.

Ongoing and routine attacks on health workers and violence are limiting the kind of help countries are sending.

A member of the medical staff of the Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) gets ready as she checks her Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in front of the mirror.ISAAC KASAMANI /
AFP/Getty Images

Last year, the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention pulled Ebola experts back from conflict zones in DRC over fears about their safety. There have been reports that health teams responding to the outbreak have been attacked three or four times a week.

Canada, which is a member of WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, a group that deals with threats of epidemic-prone diseases, responded to a request to send an emergency management specialist. That specialist will work at WHO’s emergency operations centre in the neighbouring Republic of the Congo.

Unlike the previous West African crisis, the Public Health Agency of Canada has not, so far, sent epidemiologists, lab support or other experts directly to the outbreak region.

A PHAC spokesperson acknowledged Canada has a history of providing on-site support to WHO for Ebola. In addition to work developing the vaccine that has been deployed in DRC, the public health agency sent out epidemiologists, laboratory support and emergency management resources in 2014 and 2015 to support global efforts to respond to the West African Ebola epidemic.

There have been no similar announcements this time.

“When making decisions about how to support requests for assistance and subsequent deployments,” said spokeswoman Maddison, “PHAC considers where the greatest need exists and carefully considers the security of personnel.”

A health worker carries a four-day-old baby suspected of having Ebola, into a MSF (Doctors Without Borders) supported Ebola Treatment Centre (ETC) on November 4, 2018 in Butembo, Democratic Republic of the Congo.JOHN WESSELS /
AFP/Getty Images

The decision to send an emergency management expert is one part of the Canadian response to the Ebola outbreak. The federal government has invested $1.5 million in rapid research aimed at improving the way the world responds to public health emergencies. It has also provided more than $3.3 million in emergency humanitarian assistance to WHO, the Red Cross, Médecins sans Frontières and other agencies that have health and support workers on the ground in DRC.

Steven Hoffman, scientific director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s (CIHR) Institute of Population and Public Health, noted that responding to the current outbreak has been challenging. “It is happening in a part of a country which is experiencing significant conflict, which makes it much more difficult for organizations and governments to help out.” It is also happening close to a large urban area, he said.

But Hoffman said the launch of Canada’s rapid research fund for Ebola which supports four projects with African and Canadian researchers is an important accomplishment.

“From a Canadian perspective, this is a really good news story.”

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The fund was created for the West African Ebola outbreak and was mobilized soon after the DRC outbreak began last spring, in partnership with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Canada’s International Development Research Centre.

Four Canadian and African research teams were chosen to work on projects during the current Ebola surge — including studying how better access to routine health information could help control outbreaks and the role social, cultural and environmental factors play in containing them.

No other national government has supported similar research that can be done during the Ebola crisis and help with future ones, he said.

“The big value is that this is happening as an outbreak is occurring, which allows them to study the mechanics of the response in a way they would not be able to do when looking at it historically.”